Service integration and knowledge management

It became pretty clear in 2013 that the service integration wave was building up. It was discussed at the conferences and it’s been covered in blogs. As more IT managers fold the point-solutions of today in with traditional vendors and legacy systems, it’s more balls in the air while you maintain happy user and customer relationships, design cohesive SLAs, and ensure you don’t underestimate your total cost of ownership, amongst a myriad of other things.

And what of the contribution of knowledge management? Your records of the who and how of escalation become more important when there’s more than one place to go—and that might be dependent on the system or the time of day or any other factor. Your goal with your users, of course, is to hide the stitches, and they don’t care who the various service providers are. They only care that the services are working as they should and that you’re in their corner when something breaks. So, keep that in mind when you’re building your service catalogue and writing your self-service articles.